


death is all you cradle

by ravensandherons



Series: Beat the Devil's Tattoo [3]
Category: DreamSMP, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), God Complex, Graphic descriptions, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mental Breakdown, Prison Dream, Stream of Consciousness, Suicidal Ideation, grandiose delusions, no beta we die like the cat in Pandora's Vault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 00:55:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30097842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravensandherons/pseuds/ravensandherons
Summary: He has nothing left except for a cat, and then he loses that too.It’s time he stops acting like a man who wants to live. In fact, it’s time he stops acting like a man at all.....An exploration of imprisoned Dream's delusion of grandeur. /rp
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Beat the Devil's Tattoo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2065275
Kudos: 27





	death is all you cradle

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, long time no see! Here is a character study of Dream focused on life in prison and his god complex. I hope you like it!!!! :D
> 
> Disclaimer: I'm writing about the roleplay character, not the content creator (/rp)
> 
> TW: Suicidal Ideation, Implied Torture, Implied Self-Harm, Delusional Thinking, Graphic Descriptions, Animal Death

It has come to this.

He has no home left except for the soil and the sea. In times of war, a man who wants to live cannot keep a house with flowers on the porch and lanterns in the windows. A man who wants to live burrows underground and hides from the light of the sun. A man who wants to live leaves no evidence of living.

He has no stories left except for the one written in his code. In times of defeat, a man who wants to live confesses to the crimes he had the courage to commit. A man who wants to live promises immortality in the pages of a secret book. A man who wants to live writes history for the victors from behind the scenes.

He has no things left except for a clock on the wall. In times of brutality, a man who wants to live stays silent as he breaks, in all meanings of the word. A man who wants to live cuts the cord that ties him to the tender things of the world. A man who wants to live learns from the dead.

He has nothing left except for a cat, and then he loses that too.

It’s time he stops acting like a man who wants to live. In fact, it’s time he stops acting like a man at all.

The first step in becoming a god is to leave behind the body. His body was a proud thing that once held good memories in its muscles, generous warmth in its heart. It had broad shoulders for his brothers to lean on, for friends to put an arm around—broad shoulders for carrying the world, his world. Hands that could build, fingers that were dexterous and delicate, knuckles that bore proud victories instead of burn scars. Skin that was sun-kissed and cheeks that could blush. Lungs that drew in free air and laughed in delighted wheezes; a voice that contained in its cadence the full expression of human emotion. 

Is this that same body? With flesh torn, twisted, bruised a blotchy blue? Blood matted in hair the color of straw? He possessed a mouth broken, a mouth that spoke unevenly weighted words. A mouth underfed, evident in dimensions askew—all angles and planes and aqueous bones shifting under translucent skin. His lungs labored; his heart beat the devil’s tattoo. This once was a body, perhaps, but now it is fragmented. A frustrating sum of parts that falls short of being whole. More complete is the ghostly reflection that stares at him in the sink. He thinks if it could make noise, it would only scream.

The next step in becoming a god is, for once, a choice—what kind of god does Dream want to be? He ponders this question in the blissful quiet following Tommy’s death. A god—a god demands _sacrifice_. A god has no need for reason and dispenses suffering for the price of blood. Humans hold up a mirror to their fears and call the reflection God. What does Dream see?

What he sees has already come to pass. He has been made lonely in every possible _way_ someone could be made lonely: through betrayal, through alienation, through abandonment, through death, through neglect, through grief. It was overkill—and that is a funny word, ‘overkill,’ in a land where it takes three tries to end a life once and for all; where hope not only dies but is beaten to a pulp, neck snapped, strangled yowls cutting off abruptly into a sickening silence.

Violence for the sake of violence. He never wanted to understand it, but the world ripped his hands from his eyes and showed him his own reflection in the mirror. Craters, explosions, bedrock, annihilation. _I am become death, destroyer of worlds_. Do the Warden or Quackity see the same sentiment mirrored back at them in Dream’s eyes when they drive the Willbreaker home, inch by inch? He’s quite sure of it. The litany of _please, Sam_ and _no more, Quackity_ must have sounded like prayer to their ears.

He gets it now. He does. It’s a slippery slope, a thrilling rush the entire duration of the fall. It is not a pretty legacy. That belonged to Wilbur and his _words_ , his “unfinished symphony, forever unfinished.” This server should have been Dream’s legacy, but all that came of it was violence and sorrow, cycle after cycle.

If there was a way out, he did his best to search for it. For a moment in Pandora’s Vault, he strived to earn the redemption he was believed incapable of. A ‘therapy arc’ to occupy his mind for the days when mining fatigue rendered movement impossible. Perhaps there was something to be said about Ghostbur’s Blue; to take an object and imbue it with the pain of everything. Drawing out his sorrow was its own kind of torment. If there was a physical sensation he could compare it to, it was a _tearing._ A prolonged and piercing drag through the essential parts of him, like tugging at an invisible fishing line that had its hook caught deep in his throat, a lump there that he could not swallow past. _Who do you miss the most, Dream?_ Broken memories, lost friends, sloughed off iterations of himself. He transferred it all into the clock—really, the perfect symbol of inescapable cycles—and hurled it into the lava. For a brief moment, he felt free despite the alternating walls of obsidian and lava that suffocated him. But then the smell of burnt plastic would waft into the cell, sink into his clothes—a reminder. Remembering the pain was worse than dwelling on it without respite.

God of revenge, god of sorrow—more titles to bookend the ones he had been granted, _villain in the history books_ chief among them. The difference was he had picked them.

The third step in becoming a god is to perform miracles. Unthinkable feats of strength, like beating a teenager to death while starved and half-mad, less dignified than a mangy dog. Resurrections, too. Hunched over a corpse, cupping his hands together and muttering ancient nonsense, eyes glazed over as he travels to the abyss he’s been staring into.

Tommy comes back much the same way a match sparks into flame. That same sudden flash of heat, the same nervous quiver of new light. _How was it?_ It’s a question that preoccupies Dream—the last vestige of intellectual curiosity he has left. Although not all of his curiosity is intellectual. He’s not a man who wants to live, after all.

The final step in becoming a god is to vanish. To abandon his creation altogether. To inflict upon it the same gnawing isolation he feels. They will beg to thin air, first in anger and then in desperation. _Is there anybody there? Please, damn it, just be there._ Questions that will ring out in a vindicated silence. Or perhaps he will vanish in a different way, forgotten in a crypt, buried in the annals of time.

It has come to this.

**Author's Note:**

> TYSM for reading!!!! Please leave a kudos or a comment if you'd like, I love to hear your thoughts on my work and interact with the community!!! This fic is a part of a series called "Beat the Devil's Tattoo," the title of which comes from the [song of the same name by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW1UUekcb8s) that fits c!Dream so well. Consider reading those as well!!! And listen to the song too (it's very very good).
> 
> You can find me on twitter ([@ravensandherons](https://twitter.com/ravensandherons)) for more DreamSMP writing and analysis.


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